As a retired school teacher I like to spend my hours painting and gardening outdoors. There has been one big hindrance to my enjoying these activities–leaf blowers.

At some time every day, I hear the sound of leaf blowers at one of the many surrounding properties that utilize this service to “scrub” the ground, robbing it of its natural mulch and soil enriching capabilities, covering nearby plants with dust.

My biggest complaint, however, is the noise. The grinding, penetrating noise of a leaf blower gets to the nerves! Lawn mowers and weed whackers don’t seem to have the same maddening effect. Even if the leaves must be removed, say on walkways or pavement, perhaps a leaf rake and broom could be used?

I just read the Weekly-News article titled “Town council mulls story poles, leaf blowers at Aug. 5 meeting.” So, it is an issue! I, like another reader, “never complained because I didn’t think it would do any good.” I wonder how many other people (especially those who stay at home during the day) feel the same way.

Veronica Gross

Los Gatos

Town does not need to accept Templar Sports

Please use this as an opportunity to remind our Los Gatos mayor, Barbara Spector, and the entire town council that we are not resigned to accepting the cancer in our community that is Templar Armaments.

They got into our town using the deceptive business name of Templar “Sports” when they do not offer a single piece of equipment that can be used in any of our town school’s organized sports programs. And it was an obvious deceptive move on their part, because all the paperwork they had filled out for the state and federal ATF used the more definitive and appropriate business names of Templar Armaments or Templar Amory. This initial intentional deception should alone be grounds enough not to renew their business license. Reference the new town ordinance, page 7, Section 14.13.060 c 2: “Suspension or revocation of permit”; “misleading”; “material omission of fact.”

The citizens of the town do not need or want a gun store in our presence, which was demonstrated by the fact that all businesses in town that used to carry such wares either went out of business, or stopped offering them as one of their available products. There simply wasn’t a market for them.

But the Internet changes all that because a business can now survive without dependence on a local clientele.

Which leads me to a point regarding the new ordinance. On Page 2, Section 14.130.015, “Definitions”. The definition for “Retail Sales of Firearms” should not include or encompass “Internet transactions” since:

1–Such retail sales and transactions should require a separate specific Internet sales permit, since regulation and enforcement of Internet sales are unique, technical, complex, difficult, costly and well beyond the town’s resources to monitor or enforce. The recent incident that occurred in Los Gatos involving an Internet chemical sales firm, MechChem, illegally making shipments for over a decade of flammable and toxic substances is a perfect example. To make the situation even worse, many of the shipments were international to boot. Do we want to enable a potential international arms dealer here by simply giving them a pass on Internet sales as part of the town’s business licence package?

2–Internet sales, and volume sales, go hand-in-hand with large inventories. Templar’s merchandise includes ammunition and other explosive offerings, which become increasingly dangerous as quantities increase. Internet buyers typically want to handle a gun before purchasing it, but ammo is another thing. It’s a commodity that customers don’t have to visually or manually evaluate, so large the potential for large volumes is high.

As if this isn’t enough, their last minute inclusion of the word “repair” to its business licence permits a legal loophole for Templar to deal in the installation of “bullet buttons,” a gun modification enabling the use of removable high-capacity ammunition clips. Even its chosen business name of “Templar” is reprehensible and repugnant since it is also used by the Templar Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.